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Making The World
The author of Old Turtle and the illustrator of Big Al reveal the secret of how our unfinished world is being made complete by everyone who lives in it and leave readers with a special appreciation for nature.
40 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1998
About the author
Douglas Wood
94 books89 followersComposer, recording artist, wilderness guide, and self-taught naturalist-Douglas Wood is perhaps most widely known as the highly acclaimed author of OLD TURTLE, a 1993 ABBY Award winner and an International Reading Association Book of the Year. Author of several books for readers of all ages, Douglas says he is always seeking themes that are universally significant to both children and adults. His first book for Candlewick Press, GRANDAD'S PRAYERS OF THE EARTH-winner of the Christopher Medal for "affirming the highest value of the human spirit"-quietly explores the theme of grief and healing while celebrating a human connection to the natural world and the enduring spirit of love. Douglas Wood kept in mind someone very special to his own life when writing GRANDAD'S PRAYERS OF THE EARTH. "I feel I've been getting ready to write this book all my life, for it is about my wise and gentle hero, my Grandad. It's a prayer and a thank you, a walk in the woods, and a remembering smile; and it is for anyone who has ever had a woods to walk, a prayer to whisper, a hero to love."
Douglas Wood lives with his family in a log cabin on the banks of the Mississippi River in Minnesota.
Douglas Wood lives with his family in a log cabin on the banks of the Mississippi River in Minnesota.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 8, 2024
The world isn’t finished yet,
It isn’t quite complete.
It’s still
being
made.
Everywhere you look
and everywhere you listen,
someone or something
is helping
to make the world.
Douglas Wood’s poetic text, accompanied by the marvellous watercolour paintings of Yoshi and Hibiki Miyazaki, considers the ways that natural phenomena, elements, plants, animals (insects, birds, mammals) and a child contribute to the ongoing creation and beauty of the planet.
Wood begins with an ocean breeze and seamlessly moves on to a butterfly that “tickles” that breeze, the fluttering wildflower that offers nectar to the butterfly, and the child who bends to smell a flower and feels the breeze in his hair. The author then considers an antelope and the ancient baobab tree that has watched “oceans of antelope wash over the [adjacent] plain” for thousands of years. The tree offers a home to African birds, who reciprocate by offering the silent baobab the gift of music. A cloud that rains down on a pond, “dimpling” the water where koi live; a mountaintop, which “throws silver waterfalls down dark green slopes” to quench the thirsty lands below; a trail which connects farms and villages; squirrel monkeys, the moon, and a moth beating its wings are also contemplated.
Throughout the book, Wood regularly addresses (in the second person) a child who appears in the scene being described. It’s not the same child each time, but one who lives in the region being focused on. We see North and South American, African, and Asian landscapes.
The book opens with daytime scenes and ends with a nighttime one that includes the moon, a luna moth with its “feather-duster wings” beating against the window pane, a loving mother, and a child dreaming of all he “might be and all that the world might be.”
Rich in imagery (similes, metaphors, and personification) as well as onomatopoeia, this is a visually and linguistically satisfying picture book.
I’ve used it for a student choral presentation, but it’s also a fine model for writing. I could see children writing personalized pieces, highlighting the interconnectedness of the beautiful things in their own little corners of the world.
It isn’t quite complete.
It’s still
being
made.
Everywhere you look
and everywhere you listen,
someone or something
is helping
to make the world.
Douglas Wood’s poetic text, accompanied by the marvellous watercolour paintings of Yoshi and Hibiki Miyazaki, considers the ways that natural phenomena, elements, plants, animals (insects, birds, mammals) and a child contribute to the ongoing creation and beauty of the planet.
Wood begins with an ocean breeze and seamlessly moves on to a butterfly that “tickles” that breeze, the fluttering wildflower that offers nectar to the butterfly, and the child who bends to smell a flower and feels the breeze in his hair. The author then considers an antelope and the ancient baobab tree that has watched “oceans of antelope wash over the [adjacent] plain” for thousands of years. The tree offers a home to African birds, who reciprocate by offering the silent baobab the gift of music. A cloud that rains down on a pond, “dimpling” the water where koi live; a mountaintop, which “throws silver waterfalls down dark green slopes” to quench the thirsty lands below; a trail which connects farms and villages; squirrel monkeys, the moon, and a moth beating its wings are also contemplated.
Throughout the book, Wood regularly addresses (in the second person) a child who appears in the scene being described. It’s not the same child each time, but one who lives in the region being focused on. We see North and South American, African, and Asian landscapes.
The book opens with daytime scenes and ends with a nighttime one that includes the moon, a luna moth with its “feather-duster wings” beating against the window pane, a loving mother, and a child dreaming of all he “might be and all that the world might be.”
Rich in imagery (similes, metaphors, and personification) as well as onomatopoeia, this is a visually and linguistically satisfying picture book.
I’ve used it for a student choral presentation, but it’s also a fine model for writing. I could see children writing personalized pieces, highlighting the interconnectedness of the beautiful things in their own little corners of the world.
November 14, 2014
This beautiful, quiet contemplation of the things and animals that make our world reassures kids that they too have power to make/change the world. It's a free verse poem filled with wonderful images, like "Koi in the pond rise to the dimpling rain..." and "A mountaintop, glowing with the last fire of sunset, throws silver waterfalls down dark green slopes." It gets stronger and more gorgeous as the book goes along.
July 4, 2010
This is a really good book. This is a great book to read to teach children about how we all work together to make this world.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews